1 October 2009

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS Eelam, which has also fought for decades to carve an
independent state. The government claims the Tamil Tigers
Text of Boxer-Kerry have “used suicide bombings and political assassinations in
its campaign for independence, killing hundreds of civilians
Climate/Energy Tax Bill in the process.”

[Americans for Tax Reform] HLP and a group of Tamil doctors say they merely wanted “to
SEP 30, 2009 06:34P.M. provide their expert medical advice on how to address the
shortage of medical facilities and trained physicians” in the
The text of the Boxer-Kerry Senate climate/energy tax bill has been region but “they are afraid to do so because they fear
released...well, sort of. It is about 700 pages of DRAFT text. The House prosecution for providing material support.”
passed cap-and-trade bill was about 1300; there are a lot ...
A federal appeals court agreed with the groups that the statute as written
is unconstitutionally vague; the government wants to preserve the
current broad language. Arguments won’t take place until early next
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS year, but if you can’t wait for a preview, check out this exchange between
David Cole and Paul Rosenzweig on PATRIOT’s material support
Supremes to Hear PATRIOT provision, part of a highly illuminating series of debates on aspects of the
law (as originally written) hosted by the American Bar Association.
‘Material Support’ Challenge
[Cato at Liberty‘Material
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Support’ Challenge]
SEP 30, 2009 04:38P.M. Creeping Taxes [Americans for
As I mentioned in passing in my post yesterday, one of the reforms in Tax Reform]
Russ Feingold’s JUSTICE Act involves tweaking the USA PATRIOT Act’s SEP 30, 2009 04:23P.M.
definition of “material support” for terrorism to ensure that it doesn’t
cover things like humanitarian aid or legal assistance. Today, the The following document, by the Joint Economic Committee, explains
Supreme Court agreed to hear a case concerning that very issue: some new and intricate ways that the administration is finding to take a
bite out of your wallet. While taxing “Cadill...
The key plaintiff in the current appeal is the Humanitarian
Law Project, a Los Angeles, California-based non-profit that
says its mission is to advocate “for the peaceful resolution of
armed conflicts and for worldwide compliance with
humanitarian law and human rights law.” HLP sought to help
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group active in Turkey.
Known as PKK, the party was founded in the mid-1970s and
has been labeled a terror organization by the United States
and the European Union. Its leaders have previously called
for militancy to create a separate Kurdish state in parts of
Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, where Kurds comprise a
population majority. [...]

Another plaintiff is an American physician who wanted to

help ethnic Tamils in his native Sri Lanka. Much of the island
nation is controlled by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Wednesday Links [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 03:33P.M.
• More policymakers coming around to the idea that it is wrong to
jail drug users as criminals.
• How Obama’s protectionist policies are hurting the poor.
• More stifling of political speech.
• “Checks and balances” be damned: “In a democratic country, you’d
think that before the executive branch could regulate CO2–a
ubiquitous substance essential to life–the legislature would have to
vote on the issue. But you’d be wrong.” Somewhere, Thomas
Friedman is smiling.
• Podcast: Next week marks eight years since the U.S. invaded
Afghanistan. It’s time to get out. Read the exit strategy.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Contempt of (Secret) Court?
[Cato at Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 03:21P.M.
At last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the PATRIOT Act,
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) raised an interesting question I haven’t seen
discussed much: What happens to someone who willfully violates an
order of the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?
(FISA)
Generally, courts have the right to enforce their own orders by finding
those who disobey in contempt, and a line from a rare public version of
an opinion issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of
Review suggests that the same holds here, noting that a service provider
who challenged the (now superseded) Protect America Act “began
compliance under threat of civil contempt.” (There is, interestingly, some
redacted text immediately following that.) Contempt proceedings
normally fall to the court that issued the original order.
A finding of civil contempt will typically result in the incarceration of the
offending party until they agree to comply—and on the theory that the
person “holds the keys to their own cell,” because they’ll be released as
soon as they fall in line, normal due process rules don’t apply here. Of
course, there are ways of violating the order that make it impossible to
comply after the fact, such as breaching the gag rule that prevents people
from disclosing that they’ve been served with orders, or (getting extreme
now) destroying the records or “tangible things” sought via a Section 215
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1 October 2009
order. In those cases, presumably, the only recourse would be criminal
contempt, for which you’re supposed to be entitled to a jury trial if the
penalty is “serious” and involves more than six months incarceration.
That obviously raises some interesting problems given the
extraordinarily secret nature of the FISA Court. In the public version of
the opinion I linked above, the name of the petitioner and all identifying
details are redacted, even the ruling was released six months after it was
handed down, so as to avoid tipping off targets about specific providers
that have received orders.
Now, I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume we’re not at the point
of “disappearing” folks off our own streets, but it is a puzzle how you’d
actually carry out enforcement and penalty, if it ever came to that,
consistent with the secrecy demanded in these investigations.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Supremes Take Gun Rights
Issue Nationwide [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 02:49P.M.
With its decision today to hear the case of McDonald v. Chicago, the
Supreme Court should settle the question of whether states must
recognize the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In June
of 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court found, for the first
time, that the federal government must recognize the Second
Amendment right of individuals, quite apart from their belonging to a
militia, to have an operational firearm in their home. But the decision
left open the question whether states were similarly bound.
Thus, the so-called incorporation doctrine will be at issue in this case –
the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporates” the
guarantees of the Bill of Rights against the states. The Bill of Rights
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
applied originally only against the federal government. But the
Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, left open the question of which
rights states were bound to recognize. The modern Court has
incorporated most of the rights found in the Bill of Rights, but the
Second Amendment’s guarantees have yet to be incorporated.
Moreover, a question that will arise in this case is whether the Court, if it
does decide that the states are bound by the Second Amendment, will
reach that conclusion under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process
Clause or under its Privileges or Immunities Clause, which has been
moribund since the infamous Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873. In its brief
urging the Court to hear the McDonald petition, the Cato Institute urged
the Court to revive the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Inflation Warning [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 02:24P.M.
In the last few days, we have witnessed an almost unprecedented chorus
of warnings about inflation prospects by senior Fed officials. Dallas Fed
President Richard Fisher said the Fed must be prepared to tighten
monetary policy by raising short-term interest rates with “alacrity.”
President Charles Plosser of Philadelphia had spoken of the need to raise
interest rates before unemployment returns to normal in order “to
prevent the Second Great Inflation.” The comments of the two Reserve
Bank presidents reinforce those made by Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
Financial markets are confused because the Fed’s policy-making
committee (the Federal Open Market Committee) had just indicated its
intention to keep interest rates low for an extended period. The inflation
warnings represent an internal debate that has gone public. Formal
dissents from the FOMCs policy directive have reportedly been
discouraged. So Fed officials are in effect offering up virtual dissents in
public speeches. Confidence in Chairman Bernanke’s policy is waning.
Most economic forecasters profess to see little inflation risk. They need
to reconsider their forecasts in light of the inflation warnings from within
the central bank.
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1 October 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Democrats Favor Trade
Sanctions on Americans [Cato
at Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 12:32P.M.
Scott Lincicome sharpens his pencil today and calculates that
Congressional failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade
Agreement–a deal that was signed almost three full years ago–has so far
cost American exporters $2 billion. That tally increases $1.9 million each
and every day.
Since that time [the trade agreement signing], American
exporters have paid approximately $1.9 million per day in
Colombian tariffs that they wouldn’t have paid if the
Democrat-controlled Congress had just passed the FTA back
then and thus allowed it to enter into force. By my math, that
means that Congress’ and (now) the President’s partisan
stalling has resulted in a pointless tax on American
businesses of almost $2 billion ($1.9798 billion = 1042 days
times $1.9 million) and counting.
My colleague Dan Griswold explained yesterday how U.S. trade policy
punishes poorer people abroad, and amounts to a regressive tax here at
home:
America’s highest remaining trade barriers are aimed at
products mostly grown and made by poor people abroad and
disproportionately consumed by poor people at home. While
industrial goods and luxury products typically enter under
low or zero tariffs, the U.S. government imposes duties of 30
pecent or more on food and lower-end clothing and shoes —
staple goods that loom large in the budgets of poor families.
The Obama administration and Congress could easily remove the
sanctions that burden America’s exporters and lower-income consumers.
But until they’re convinced that they can make up the revenues lost by
crossing Big Labor, the Democratic Party playbook counsels more of the
same disingenuous rhetoric of fraternity with the common man and
more exaggerations about evil foreign labor practices.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
How Cap and Tax Will Hurt
North Carolina [Americans for
Tax Reform]
SEP 30, 2009 11:53A.M.
In our continuing, daily, state by state, look at the financial impact of the
Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Tax Bill, we will show you the projected
losses in Gross State Product, Personal Income, and N...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Memo to Congress: 64% of the
People Want Bills Online for
Two Weeks Before You Vote
[Americans for Tax Reform]
SEP 30, 2009 11:45A.M.
So certainly, asking for 72 hours is not asking too much! The following is
cross-posted at www.fiscalaccountability.org: A memo to those in the
U.S. House of Representatives who are holding up the d...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
“Keep Your Subsidies off My
Ovaries” [“Cato at Liberty”]
SEP 30, 2009 11:33A.M.
In my recent Cato paper, “All the President’s Mandates: Compulsory
Health Insurance Is a Government Takeover,” I explain that if Congress
compels Americans to purchase health insurance, it would “inevitably
and unnecessarily open a new front in the abortion debate, one where
either side—and possibly both sides—could lose.”
Slate’s William Saletan explains how the pro-choice side could lose:
This week, the Senate finance committee is considering
amendments that would bar coverage of abortions under
federally subsidized health insurance. Pro-choice groups are
up in arms. After all, says NARAL Pro-Choice America, “In
the current insurance marketplace, private plans can choose
whether to cover abortion care—and most do.” If Congress
enacts subsidies that exclude abortion, “women
could lose coverage for abortion care, even if their
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1 October 2009
private health-insurance plan already covers it!“…
The argument these groups make is perfectly logical: If you
standardize health insurance through federal
subsidies and coverage requirements, people might
lose benefits they used to enjoy in the private sector.
But that’s more than an argument against excluding abortion.
It’s an argument against health care reform altogether.
Saletan also explains why pro-life and pro-choice positions on Obama’s
health plan are irreconcilable:
To get what they consider neutrality, pro-choicers have to
make pro-lifers pay indirectly for abortions. And to keep what
they consider clean hands, pro-lifers have to make abortion
coverage federally unsupportable and therefore, in a subsidy-
dependent system, commercially nonviable.
Rather than an argument against all health care reform, I’d say this is an
argument against reforms that expand government subsidies or
otherwise give government the power to choose what kind of insurance
you purchase. Fortunately, there are better ways to reform health care.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Chart of the Day — Federal Ed
Spending [Cato at Liberty—
Federal Ed Spending]
SEP 30, 2009 11:30A.M.
The debate over No Child Left Behind re-authorization is upon us.
Except it isn’t.
In his recent speech kicking off the discussion, education secretary Arne
Duncan asked not whether the central federal education law should be
reauthorized, he merely asked how.
Let’s step back a bit, and examine why we should end federal
intervention in (and spending on) our nation’s schools… in one thousand
words or less:
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
While the flat trend lines for overall achievement at the end of high
school mask slight upticks for minority students (black students’ scores,
for instance, rose by 3-5 percent of the 500 point NAEP score scale),
even those modest gains aren’t attributable to federal spending. Almost
that entire gain happened between 1980 and 1988, when federal
spending per pupil declined.
And, in the twenty years since, the scores of African American students
have drifted downard while federal spending has risen
stratospherically.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Why Not Eliminate the Cap-
Gains Tax for Everyone? [Larry
Kudlow’s Money Politic$]
SEP 30, 2009 11:20A.M.
The Case-Shiller home-price index increased yesterday for the third
month in a row. That’s terrific news. After a 40 to 50 percent drop in
home prices in recent years, sales are picking up, because prices are way
down. That’s also great. Markets work.
But here’s what I don’t like about this story: Big, central-planning,
government-directed tax preferences for housing, like the $8,000 dollar
tax credit for new buyers. Or even the popular mortgage interest
deduction. And let’s not forget perhaps the biggest one of all: Home sales
are basically capital-gains-tax free. That passed back in 1997. Many
people (including myself) believe it helped create the bubble.
Why not eliminate the capital-gains tax for everyone and all sectors,
including investors and stocks and bonds? Why direct it only to housing?
Let’s abolish the capital-gains tax altogether. Let’s quit double-taxing
investment, which is what capital gains does. But let’s do it for everyone
and everything — not just housing. While we’re giving all these
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1 October 2009
preferences to housing, what about manufacturing? What about
transportation? Or health care? Or any other sector in the economy for
that matter?
We also could be cutting business tax rates across-the-board for
companies big and small.
And for all individuals and businesses, why not a simple, low, flat-rate
tax? Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent? Get rid of all of the special
preferences and deductions in the code. Stop favoring one sector at the
expense of the others. Incidentally, this would stop the corruption of K-
Street lobbyists who love to get these preferences in there.
Let’s make the tax code simple, fair, and pro-growth, to unleash
prosperity. Let’s stop the political direction of the economy, and let’s
substitute a market direction of the economy. A true flat tax would do it.
If you get to keep more of what you earn and invest at the lower tax rate
— if you tax something less — you’ll get more of it. If you tax the whole
economy less — not just housing, but the entire economy — you will get a
much more prosperous and healthier economy. At a time when we’re all
worried about economic growth, we ought to be thinking hard about
this.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Wednesday’s Daily News [The
Club for Growth]
SEP 30, 2009 11:05A.M.
THE DAILY NEWS Dick Durbin and D.C. School Vouchers - Wall
Street Journal Editorial Lawmakers Jack Up Spending for Themselves -
Manu Raju, Politico ObamaCare’s Trick - Michael Franc, National
Review Stimulus Success No Matter What - John Stossel, Real Clear
Politics Gross Domestic Happiness? - Brian Domitrovic, Wall Street
Journal Health Care: Horse Doctors - IBD Editorial The G-20 Continues
Its Hypocrisy on Free Trade - Thomas Cooley, Forbes Obama’s
Protectionism Hurting Low-Income Americans - Dan Griswold, Cato
Michael Moore Goes After Blue Dogs - Jared Allen, The Hill Why Apple
is the World’s Best Retailer - Dennis Kneale, CNBC Cubs 6, Pirates 0 -
Associated Press
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
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Entrepreneur of the Day [The
Club for Growth]
SEP 30, 2009 10:48A.M.
From The Consumerist:
Groceries on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of
Manhattan are expensive. How expensive? One guy with a
truck has started a business delivering cheaper groceries. One
catch, he doesn’t own a grocery store. He will go to Costco,
where items cost a fraction of their Manhattan prices — and
split the savings with you.
He requires that you live in a doorman building and that the
savings add up to at least $40 —which shouldn’t be hard
based on his estimates.
This is a great example of a person going around trade barriers.
Consumers want low price goods, but don’t have access to them because
of local government restrictions. This forces local goods to be priced
higher than they should be. Enter the entrepreneur. He buys the goods in
one market and sells them in another market. The difference is his
profit.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Quote of the Day [The Club for
Growth]
SEP 30, 2009 10:38A.M.
From Scott Lincicome:
The US-Colombia FTA was completed and signed on
November 22, 2006. Since that time, American exporters
have paid approximately $1.9 million per day in Colombian
tariffs that they wouldn’t have paid if the Democrat-
controlled Congress had just passed the FTA back then and
thus allowed it to enter into force. By my math, that means
that Congress’ and (now) the President’s partisan stalling has
resulted in a pointless tax on American businesses of almost
$2 billion ($1.9798 billion = 1042 days times $1.9 million)
and counting.
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1 October 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Senator Bennett, Rubbing His
Temples Over, and Over, and
Over, and Over Again [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 09:00A.M.
Nancy Scola at TechPresident has a pretty hilarious write-up of a Senate
hearing Tuesday on the transparency and accessibility of government
contracting databases. Guess what? It’s a mess.
And on the TechLiberationFront blog, I expressed my dismay with
industry association “TechAmerica” dragging its heels on transparency
in service to its government-contractor membership.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
President Obama’s Trade War
on the Poor [Cato at Liberty]
SEP 30, 2009 08:56A.M.
A Wall Street Journal story yesterday reports the rising level of poverty
in America caused by the steep and lingering recession. As I point out in
a Washington Times column that also ran yesterday, one unintended
consequence of President Obama’s trade policies so far has been to make
the growing number of poor even poorer.
As I explained in the “Economic Watch” column:
America’s highest remaining trade barriers are aimed at
products mostly grown and made by poor people abroad and
disproportionately consumed by poor people at home. While
industrial goods and luxury products typically enter under
low or zero tariffs, the U.S. government imposes duties of 30
percent or more on food and lower-end clothing and shoes –
staple goods that loom large in the budgets of poor families.
To win favor with organized labor and other opponents of
trade liberalization, Mr. Obama has either defended or
actually raised barriers on precisely those products of most
interest to poor households. …
The $25 billion in revenue raised each year from import
duties represent by far the most regressive tax the federal
government imposes. Yet the Obama administration and the
Democratic Congress have refused to move forward with
trade agreements that would lower trade taxes that fall most
heavily on the poor. By supporting the farm bill, but not new
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 1 October 2009

trade agreements, the president has embraced the status quo

rather than change.

Read the full article.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Two Special Guests on Kudlow

Report Tonight [Larry Kudlow’s
Money Politic$]
SEP 30, 2009 08:19A.M.

We’ve got two very special interviews on the Kudlow Report tonight.

Joining us will be House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who

will share his thoughts on healthcare, tax hikes and the economy as well
as the future of the Republican Party. Could we be looking at a bigtime
GOP victory in next year’s midterm election?

Plus, speaking of elections, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) will also
be aboard. She’s trying to become the next governor of Texas—she’s a
presidential candidate if there ever was one.

Pleas join us on CNBC tonight at 7pm ET.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

An Interview with Jon Kyl on

the Public Option [Larry
Kudlow’s Money Politic$]
SEP 30, 2009 07:08A.M.

Is the public option really dead?

Last night I interviewed John Kyl of Arizona, the Senate’s Republican

whip, to get his take on the matter. Kyl — who also serves on the Senate
Finance Committee — voted to reject the public option. He calls it “a
solution looking for a problem,” and thinks it will ultimately come up
short. He also believes there will be some substitute for the public option
that most Democrats will rally around once it fails.